Record Data
Transcription
A Suspected Slaver Captured.
From the New Orleans Delta.
Day before yesterday, the schooner Louis Melane cleared from this city for the coast of Africa, under circumstances that excited the suspicions of Collector HATCH of the New Orleans Custom-House, inasmuch as her manifest embraced all the usual appurtenances. Wares and merchandize used in carrying on commerce with the King of Dahomey and other African potentates of greater or lesser magnitude. There was an abundance of bolt iron, which, it was supposed, might be converted into African bracelets, ([vulgariter?], hand-cuffs;) lumber that might be used in constructing a temporary upper deck; a number of empty water casks, and also numerous whiskey and rum barrels, which were not empty - a few gallons of the contents of which, according to current quotations in the markets of his Dahomic Majesty, command the price of one of his able-bodied subjects.
In addition to all this, it was regarded as a circumstance of suspicion that, though ostensibly commanded by an American captain, the crew were all Spaniards, and two mysterious, individuals were on board passengers. Still further, the schooner had a razor-shaped bow and rakish air, presenting that peculiar tout ensemble which novelists of the Marryat and Professor Ingraham order are wont to characterize as a “long, low, dark schooner, with raking masts,” and was provided with sweeps, which, as Capt. CANOT - thanks to his very entertaining editor, Mr. BRANTZ MAYER - has informed us, are frequently in great requisition in the calm seas of the West Coast.
Our ingenious Collector, Mr. HATCH, having rapidly woven a theory out of all this presumptive evidence, permitted the schooner to clear, but shortly afterwards dispatched a revenue cutter after her, by which she was overtaken and boarded yesterday, for the purpose of bringing her back to the city to undergo investigation before the United States District Court; and the suspected parties will be doubtless immediately prosecuted before the tribunal, on the charge of a deliberate intention to carry on an illicit trade between the west coast of Africa and the south coast of Cuba.